1. The illness of which you complain
Knows best its cure, if you consent

2. Yet I see you conceal from it
Aches, fearing its rights to vent

3. Did you think favors are for those
Silent, while bounties flow and pour?

4. Had bounties been for the mute
The dumb would have drowned in bounties galore

5. Glances, then sighs, that dread
The heat of their blazing ember

6. If put into words, they would be
The sweetest discourse to remember

7. Or echoes repeated by a quarter’s ruins
Whose fringes trailing were covered with dust

8. Unburden your sorrows, for solace is hoped
If promises are inclined to trust

9. Preoccupied with versifying were we
While the virgins moaned to their Lord

10. And we saw Ahmed’s compilation
From which hearts and passions aren’t deterred

11. O West, all knowledge modern
We are the land, and you the sky

12.
And when eloquence is mentioned

13. Do not say we in eloquence equalize
If sheikhs are counted from you and from us

14. An Egyptian lad for all holds the banner high
And if some folks the truth deny

15. Disliking a lad to Egypt luminous
Don’t blame them, maybe they envy him

16. Or, by his merits, are ignoramuses
Welcome O luminaries, and suffice O rhymes

17. Whose share of him is sublimity and loft
Welcome O grandeur, and suffice O glories

18. Whose portion of him is brilliance and elegance
Welcome O praise, verses of truth

19. Whose sincerity mingled not with ostentation
Welcome O life, in depiction running

20. Where the depicted and objects return anew
Welcome O eloquence, sorcery, and in poetry

21. Wisdom deposited making it precious
Welcome O speech, superb and generous

22. Neither vituperation nor wound resembling
Welcome O ode, followed with poetry

23. To a prince who is obeyed by princes
This speech called him, and that yielded to him

24. Nobles and the lofty
Welcome O youth, in whom is for Egypt

25. A hope that won’t fail or abandon
Welcome O book, envied by books